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5 Tips for Shooting Modeled Product Photos

This post is brought to you from Melanie of Violet's Buds. Melanie has Bachelors of Science in Photography and provides product photography advice and services to entrepreneurs.An important way to sell your product to customers is to share photographs of your product on a model. Whether its kids clothes, women's accessories, hair pieces, art, or toys fans get the best representation of your product by seeing it with a model. Check out these tips to improve your modeled shots.

Make your product the focus

Mitla Moda does a beautiful job of capturing the brightness of the handmade belt because they photographed it up close, but still told a story with the added hat and the ocean backdrop.

Opposite of Far sells adorable animal masks and tails, and in this photo of the giraffe mask, the model's clothes complete the look, creating a cohesive image. Always style outfits to flatter the product being modeled - they should fit well, be wrinkle free and not have distracting graphics or patterns on them.

Pieces to Peaces uses beautiful models and further flatters their headbands with soft, even lighting. Shooting outdoors in open shade is the key to achieving this look. Read more about lighting techniques here.

Hair blowing out of place, a kid's runny nose, dirt under hand model's fingernails, a shirt collar folding up weird or even just an odd shadow on the model's face can distract from your product. As you take photos, pause to look at them on your camera's screen and make any adjustments to your model or outfit needed during the shoot to reduce time spent editing or worse - having to reshoot an entire series of photographs.

Crop carefully

The standard rule I was taught in my college photography courses is not to crop out any part of the model at a joint (wrist, knee, waist, shoulder, ankle) because it can make the image look awkward. Be mindful of limbs, joints, and the background when cropping.Bonus Tip:Take lots & lots & lots of photos. It is not uncommon to have to take over fifty images in order to get a handful of high quality images of modeled goods. Most cameras have a rapid burst option to capture multiple photos quickly, which is great when photographing products on a model! Do you shoot your own modeled photos, or work with a photographer for modeled product shots?